Chapter Text
Frigid darkness swirled around him as he descended deeper into Lover’s Lake. Steve could feel the water, like icy claws, vying to rip the breath from his burning lungs. His flashlight shone faintly through the depths, illuminating only a thin line into the black depths.
As Steve swam, he began to fear the lake was bottomless, or that he had unknowingly entered the gate and was now swimming in the Upside Down, clueless as to whether he was going up or down.
He mentally reached out to Dart, who sat on the shore with the kids. He shared his fear and received a stream of encouragement, though there was an undertone of uneasiness. Dart never adopted Steve's love for the water (as he had for nougat). He let the gentle feeling wash over him all the same. The connection was a source of comfort in itself.
He dove further, knowing he was testing his limits as he felt his body start to twitch with a need for oxygen.
Suddenly, there was a second sensation creeping in the fringes of his consciousness, fuzzy and distorted like static. It was irritating but lulling at the same time, as a TV left on in the middle of the night would be, making him falter slightly as he swam.
A moment after the feeling appeared, a faint red glow pulsed in the corner of his vision. Turning, he saw a gaping hole like a bloody wound, illuminating the lake floor there with an alien light.
Immediately, he felt repulsed by the sight, his stomach turning as he pushed himself away through the water to what he felt was a safe distance.
At the same time, a small feeling of curiosity fluttered awake as he scoped out the gate. He almost felt drawn to go closer again.
Before he could make a move in any direction, his lungs spasmed painfully as they held the last of his oxygen.
He had to start his ascent now, or he wouldn't make it back up.
Bursting past the surface of the lake, heaving cool air into his lungs, Steve grabbed blindly for purchase on the side of the little boat. As he breathed, the static feeling faded away into full awareness.
It…must have been the lack of oxygen, Steve concluded doubtfully. He'd never felt that way before, even during his toughest swim meets where he’d pushed himself the hardest.
In any case, Dart’s overpowering relief quickly replaced the strange sensation as the creature celebrated his breaching of the surface. If he focused, his mind's eye could conjure a picture of the kid's reactions as well through Dart's senses.
Steve didn’t need a supernatural connection to get a clear picture of Robin's feelings.
His friend let out a loud yelp in surprise at his sudden arrival.
“Holy shit! Don’t scare me like that! You were down there forever!” She chastised him, reaching out from the boat to try to dunk his head under the water. She was frazzled, face red in the way that made her freckles pop. He could see that her concern was genuine. Dart sent over a staunch sense of agreement as he seconded Robin’s reprimand.
Steve pushed off the boat, floating just out of reach of her pawing hands, and rolled his eyes.
The boat rocked slightly as Nancy moved to lean down closer to him.
“Did you find anything?” Nancy asked. She was all business when dealing with him, as usual. In fairness, he'd hardly been any better. Robin told him they’d ‘overcorrected’ since the breakup, blowing right past casual and landing somewhere closer to ‘estranged coworkers’.
He took in a couple more breaths before he reached up again to hang onto the side of the boat, looking at his two friends. Plus Eddie, he guessed.
The aforementioned man stared at him with round eyes from his spot in the boat. Steve couldn’t tell what the metalhead was thinking; a strange expression on his face as he chewed the ends of his hair. Gross.
“Well, I definitely found the gate, it’s right below us; like the compass said,” Steve informed them.
Eddie turned green; the girls just nodded.
Steve opened his mouth to speak again, but his breath was stolen from him as the static feeling overcame him once more. It felt like his brain was off-center.
Robin looked at him critically, “Steve?” Similarly, Dart sent out a wave of concern, confused by Steve's diminishing output.
Steve made frightened eye contact with her and went to respond, but was suddenly wrenched downwards. He flung his hand out to grip the boat more firmly as he struggled to the surface again. But before he could even take another full breath, pain shot through his leg as he was pulled under the dark water completely.
He trashed wildly on instinct, but kept enough composure to not immediately suck in water. Something had a hold of his ankle, dragging him down so fast his ears popped painfully. He could feel bubbles rush past his face, but when he opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anything. He’d definitely lost his flashlight in his confusion.
He could sense Dart was in hysterics, desperate to help Steve but unable to reach him. Steve’s own senses were straining to stay connected; that odd, fuzzy feeling was growing rapidly as he descended, dampening any clear thought or plan of action. He couldn’t even think to try to claw at the mass clamped on his leg, much less convince his body to move past the now overwhelming, full-body static nullifying him.
His eyes caught light, the red glow of the gate drawing closer. The minute spike of relief at being able to see was immediately squashed by the sight below him. A vine identical to the ones in the tunnels had a vice-like grip on him, wrapping itself far too tightly around his ankle as it pulled him directly towards the gate.
Seconds after he had laid eyes on the gate, he was being torn right through it. Cold air—colder and fouler by far than the air he had just been gratefully breathing in—cut into his skin as he was flung in an arc.
He fell in a tangle of limbs, pain shot up his spine, and his head recoiled painfully as he made harsh contact with the ground. Even free from the water, he gasped painfully for breath, the air knocked out of him from the brutal impact.
He had no time to gather himself, as the vine yanked hard, dragging Steve over thick dirt and jagged rocks like razors. He was too dazed to do anything but stare up at the flashing red sky. Mentally, he reached out desperately for Dart, suddenly all too aware he couldn't feel the ever-present brush of his companion's mind on his own.
After almost two years, he was once again terrifyingly, completely alone in his mind. It made him sick with the wrongness of it. The emptiness was a crushing weight on his heart.
Abruptly, the vine released him, leaving him tangled in a collection of larger tendrils wrapped around a small boat. He lay motionless for a moment, reeling at the loss of the bond and how quickly everything changed.
Slowly, he staggered to his feet, hissing as the movement pulled on the new cuts on his raw back.
He took in the gray, sickly landscape before him. Despite Will’s talent for storytelling, even he’d failed to do it justice. The lake was completely dry, barren of any life besides the wriggling of the vines that curled into the ground. The sky above him seemed to rip open with the intensity of the near-constant thunder, and bloody lightning tore across the sky like long, broken fingers. Spores—exactly like the ones from the tunnels—choked the air as they floated, thick and heavy around him. He could see the shape of the familiar treeline in the distance, twisted and foreboding. Or at least it should have been, but Steve was again struck with the strange urge to go towards them, deeper into the darkness of the Upside Down.
Movement fluttered in his peripheral vision. He turned in a panic, trying to identify it. It looked like a single bat, flapping its black, leathery wings, but as the creature closed in he quickly saw that it was far too large. And it was coming straight for him.
Shit.
He backed away from the approaching monster, only to spot two more coming from the opposite direction. He ran back to the vine-ridden boat and ripped an oar free.
Only seconds later the bat-creatures were on him, snapping at him with teeth like needles and lashing their serrated tails. They cried out with brittle howls as they swarmed around him.
He swung the oar madly, knocking the first out of the air with a crushing hit to its abdomen. Immediately, another took its place in the frenzy.
Steve got a couple more hits in, trying to make each swing count before a burning pain laced around his neck. He was thrown to the ground, his neck and shoulders screaming as they took the brunt of the impact. The other monsters immediately seized the opportunity, biting into the soft tissue of Steve's stomach, just below his ribs. He could feel the sting of teeth piercing flesh, digging in, and tearing. He spared a hand from where he was fighting to rip off the tail constricting his throat to thrash uselessly at the ravaging beasts to no avail.
He let the dark veins snake out from deep under his skin, but even the strength they released couldn’t help him throw off the gnashing bats eating him alive.
The static in his head grew until he could barely think or move.
Fuck, I am dying? Steve wondered through slow thoughts.
I wish Dart were here…
The bats screamed, and the once relentless assault seemed to lessen. Nancy stood above him, armed with his abandoned oar.
The next moments happened in a distorted haze of fighting, ripping, and more pain.
He could taste hot blood in his mouth, sticky and sweet.
A distant part of him savored it, begging for more.
Steve spat on the ground, slimy pieces of skin and ligaments from shredded sinew.
“Steve! Oh, God, are you alright?” Robin ran to him, putting out her hands as if she meant to help him but didn’t know how, “Ugh! Of course, you’re not alright! Those things took, like, chunks out of you! Steve!” She yelled at him like the whole thing had been his idea.
“No, Rob, I’m okay. It looks worse than it is. I think.” Steve tried to reassure her, but the buzz of adrenaline made forming words difficult.
“Are you positive, man? Cuz you look, like, really bad,” Eddie leaned out from behind Robin, pointing, surprisingly, at his face.
“Huh? Oh, the veins thing? No, that’s normal,” Steve paused, “well, for me.” He amended.
Steve reflected back to when he first met Eddie—actually met him.
The older man had pushed him up against the boathouse wall, a broken bottle to his neck. Before anyone could say anything, Dart had burst through the window like the Kool-Aid Man and promptly tackled Eddie to the ground. That had been…hard to explain. Especially through all of Eddie's screeching. Now, Steve was realizing this was the first time Eddie was actually seeing his Upside Down traits in action.
It was startling, Steve was sure. It had been disturbing to him for a long while after he gained them. When Robin saw them in the bunker, she’d actually passed out from panic, thinking the Russians had poisoned Steve with some mystery drug. The Russians themselves had been very intrigued. Steve didn’t like to ponder that, though.
“Sorry, dude, I forgot how creepy it is. Should’ve warned you.” Steve really was sorry; he hated to scare people.
Eddie stared at him, face flushed red from exertion.
“Oh. No! Nah, man, it’s metal as hell!” He practically shouted at Steve. Flailing his hands wildly through the air. Steve arched an eyebrow but said nothing.
Is Eddie always this loud?
His head hurt.
Robin looked from Eddie to Steve, then back to Eddie, and narrowed her eyes at him critically. If she was going to say something, she lost her chance as Nancy shouted at them from a few feet away.
“Guys! We need to go!” She ordered, pointing towards the horizon where a cloud of screeching bats was amalgamating.
“Oh, shit,” Eddie said breathlessly.
The group ran, Robin, supporting Steve the best she could, till they reached the woods. They narrowly avoided being overcome by the swarming monsters. There, they decided to take shelter at Skull Rock and formulate a plan. Well, they all knew Nancy would be doing the formulating, but the rest of them needed a breather.
Steve's head was killing him.
Steve stumbled up to the interior of the small cave in the rock formation, sliding down to sit on the cool stone. He couldn’t lean on his bloodied back, but even giving his weary legs a break was enough to elicit a contented sigh from him. He closed his eyes for a moment.
“Steve.”
Well, that was nice.
Steve opened his eyes and looked up. Nancy loomed over him, a concerned glint in her eye.
“We need to wrap your wounds. You’re losing too much blood,” she said matter-of-factly, but he could tell she was scared for him.
Steve nodded and allowed Nancy to help him up. He stumbled, catching himself on the rock beside him. He supposed she was right.
Maybe stanching the blood will help my head stop spinning.
Nancy tore the bottom of her skirt in an even length. She pressed it into Steve’s wounds and began to wrap it tightly around his middle. Robin danced around her while she watched the other young woman work. Blood quickly sullied the fabric, staining it a dull red. Nancy tied it off and examined her work.
“It will have to do for now,” she said, eyes flicking up to meet his own. He looked away.
“Yeah, it’s great, Nance, thanks,” Steve murmured, stepping away. Steve’s mind wandered while Nancy laid out her plan. He couldn’t feel Dart, but Steve swore he could feel something. A quiet presence just out of reach.
If he could just reach out…
Steve startled as a hand touched his shoulder. Robin stared at him with round eyes. He got the impression that she had called for him more than once.
“Yeah, Rob?” He whispered.
She looked concerned, but spared him in the end. “We’re going to the Wheeler House. To get Nancy’s guns? I guess she has guns…the more you know!” She chuckled nervously.
“Oh. Yeah, good idea. Let’s go.” Steve answered and started to walk off towards Nancy.
“Steve?” Robin called out again.
Steve spun back around, trying to look exasperated, “Yeah?”
“You sure you’re okay?”
Steve raised an eyebrow at the question.
“Yup. All good over here. Why?”
“It’s just…the veins haven’t gone away yet,” she pointed at him meekly, like she didn’t want to concern him.
Steve looked down at his hands; they were still marbled with shadowy veins, stretching out to darken his fingertips.
“Oh. It’s probably just…stress?” He tried to sound sure and flashed a lopsided smile at the blonde.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay!” She looked too ready to receive his dismissal.
It was quiet for a moment before Eddie stepped forward and tossed his battle vest at Steve. “For your modesty, dude.” He said, before looking away and going to catch up with Nancy.
His face was still red.
Man, Eddie really needs to hit the gym if he’s still out of breath, Steve thought. Stamina is important when you’re mixed up in the annual-monster-attack crap. Steve supposed he had an unfair advantage. Maybe he could offer to help Eddie, like a personal trainer. Steve thought that would be the nice thing to do.
As the group walked through the dim forest, avoiding the creeping vines, they naturally split into two groups, with Eddie and Steve taking up the rear.
The two walked in silence for a while, pointing out vines to each other every once and awhile as they went.
Steve glanced at Eddie and took a deep breath, “Hey, man, thanks for saving my ass back there.” He said, trying to catch the other man’s eye. Which was hard, as Eddie seemed to be making a concerted effort to avoid looking at him.
Steve wished the veins would fade.
“Nah, man, that was all you, you were like a total badass! Total Ozzy move,” Eddie praised, still looking off into the woods.
Steve tilted his head, lost.
“Ozzy?”
That got Eddie to turn and look at him.
“Uh, Ozzy Osbourne? Like—Black Sabbath? No? He bit a bat's head off on stage?” Eddie moved to walk closer to him unconsciously.
Steve laughed a little at the sudden invasion of his space.
“No, man,” Steve admitted.
Eddie waved his hand around like he was shooing a fly, “Eh, doesn’t matter. Just saying—it was metal, is all.”
“…thank you?” Steve guessed; he didn’t know why, but the idea of a compliment from Eddie made him giddy.
“Yeah! Yeah. Like, Dustin said you were cool—like insisted on it, actually. ‘Kid worships you, dude,” Eddie leaned even further into Steve’s space, almost knocking heads with him.
“I didn’t believe him, y’know? Cuz how could King Steve be a good guy? Sportsball Captain, chick-magnet, rich, and not an asshole? No way, man. No way.”
Steve wilted a little.
Eddie’s eyes widened, and he stopped walking, reaching out as if asking Steve to wait. “But, uh! Then I saw how those ladies jumped into the lake right after you. No hesitation, man!”
He glanced away briefly, “I'm like a total coward, ‘didn’t want to be all alone up there, so I followed ‘em… but anyway, if they could do that, I guessed you couldn’t be all that bad. And now seeing you in action, well, I think Dustin under-sold it.” Eddie fiddled with the ends of his hair.
Steve perked up a little at that, offering the metalhead a small smile.
“Don’t say that about yourself, man.” Steve chided. “You were—uh—metal too.”
Eddie took a strand of dark hair and moved it in front of his face. He looked bashful.
Steve went to reply when the sickening sensation from earlier swept through him once more.
Absently, he looked away from Eddie, into the darkness. Something was out there. He could hear it. Steve pushed past Eddie, staring hard into the shadows, trying to decipher a shape within the deep blackness of the trees. Something was there. Watching him, waiting for—
“Steve!”
Something touched his back. He flung around, ready to strike out. It was Eddie, standing with both hands up.
“Eddie?” Steve asked, confused. Why was he confused?
“You alright, dude? You sorta wandered away mid convo back there…” Eddie lowered his hands to gesture back toward where Robin and Nancy were climbing over a hill.
Steve looked back at the trees.
“Yeah, yeah. I just thought…” Fear swirled in his gut suddenly. “It’s nothing, man. I’m good.” Steve stepped forward to move past Eddie and walked off in the direction of the two women.
By the time they reached the Wheelers, Steve still had a distinct feeling he was being watched. The presence he was sensing had grown from an idle observer to what felt more akin to being stalked. It raised the hair on the back of his neck and made him jumpy.
He elected to stay downstairs, too distracted to be of any use. A bad feeling was growing heavy in his gut. It was becoming harder for him to focus, to remain present; he felt like his head was full of cotton.
He didn't know how he managed to hear Dustin.
He hardly understood the plan that was being made by the two groups between worlds, but he understood enough to dread the journey they would have to make to do it.
From what he gathered, there would be bikes involved. He could practically feel his bat bites tearing wide open.
Joy, he thought sardonically, past the buzzing in his head.
When he promptly stumbled down the stairs, trailing behind his friends, he knew he couldn’t keep his worsening condition to himself any longer.
Before the group mounted their bikes, Steve spoke up.
“Hey, guys?” He started, looking at Robin for confidence. “I’m sure—we'll—you've probably noticed, but I think I should let you guys know—I’m definitely feeling something…weird down here,” he gestured broadly to their surroundings.
“It's rabies! Oh, it's rabies, isn't it!” Robin cried out.
“Not! Rabies! Robin,” Steve pinched his nose.
Steve sighed, “It’s something to do with Dart and my bond. I can’t feel him down here. It’s like I’m completely cut off. I’m getting this weird…static instead. It’s awful.” He concluded, gesturing to his head, wondering if he’d made any sense.
Nancy looked at him with a considering expression.
“We will have to see what happens when we get topside again. Maybe it will straighten itself out. In any case, being down here isn’t good for anyone. The sooner we get out the better.”
Steve closed his eyes; they didn’t understand. Something was wrong with him.
“Nance, I really think—” but she'd already turned and got on her bike. He snapped his jaw shut, and an odd flash of irritation burned through him.
Fine.
Robin walked past with her bike, still looking concerned about rabies. She patted him on the shoulder before she gracelessly threw her leg over the seat and rode off. Eddie followed her, looking back with an empathetic expression to make sure Steve was close behind.
He got on his bike, kicking the rusted stand up with so much force that it broke right off.
Steve was able to keep pace with the others during the beginning of the ride, but the constant pumping of his legs made his sides scream, and fresh blood seeped into the stiff bandages. By the halfway point, he was falling behind.
The static in his head was worse than it had ever been, blocking anything but the most primitive thoughts.
Move.
He could feel eyes on him; eyes everywhere and nowhere, burning his skin. Voices close and far and inside him. It was unbearable.
Keep going.
His mind felt off-center, like he was falling out of his own body.
He needed to stop. Something wasn’t right.
He could see his friends riding in front of him. They were so close.
No, he just had to keep moving--
It was like his strings were cut. He had the brief sensation of his vision blacking out and hearing cutting off; nothing but static. Then everything became nothing.
He didn’t even feel it when he hit the ground.
He was surrounded by utter blackness, an indescribable cold numbing all feeling. He was floating and drowning at the same time.
An unseen force bore through him to the deepest, most feared parts of his psyche. Sharp claws ripped across his mind, cutting him open with an icy efficiency.
Boy.
A voice from the nothingness.
Low, smooth, and cool like dark silk.
Maternal.
Listen.
The pressure that once was, now gone.
It was euphoric.
There was no battle to be fought here, he decided.
Good.
He felt overwhelming pride that he had pleased the voice. He wanted to do it more.
Surrender.
I already have.
The claws were back before he could register his response. They clasped viciously onto the most basic, violent part of his connection with—Dart?
Wait.
Don't touch that!
You can't have that!
Surrender.
The claws tore.
He felt himself being ripped in two, and he knew part of himself was being left behind here.
It was the most horrible and most exhilarating thing he’d ever felt.
All the emotions he'd ever repressed were wrenched forward.
The urge to hate.
The urge to maim.
To kill.
He wanted to devour everything.
He felt the voice grin.
He smiled too.
Wake up.